Abstract: Introduction: Increasing development of some diseases such as Behcet’s disease (BD) was reported after tonsillectomy. This study was designed to find the association between tonsillectomy/adenoidectomy (T/A) and subsequent development of BD.
Patients & methods: In a prospective control study, 128 patients with BD and 139 controls from the orthopedic clinic (age and sex matched) were studied regarding previous T/A. A complete ENT clinical examination was performed for all of them. Comparison was made between the 2 groups by chi square test and Fisher exact test. Different manifestations of the disease were compared between BD patients with and without antecedent T/A.
Results: T/A was performed in 6 patients with BD (4.7%, CI:3.8) and 10 controls (7.2%, CI:4.2) with no significant difference (p=0.26). Positive history of recurrent throat infections was significantly higher (p=0.005) in BD patients (27%, CI:7.7 vs. 13%, CI:5.6). This was true for herpes simplex infection (39%, CI:8.4 vs. 30%, CI:8.1), but not statistically significant (p=0.93). No difference was found in the prevalence of tonsils (p=0.99) or adenoids (p=0.18) hypertrophy. Different clinical and paraclinical manifestations of the disease did not show any significant difference between BD patients with and without antecedent T/A (p>0.1).
Conclusion: These data suggest that T/A was neither causally related to the development of BD, nor to the manifestations of the disease. Higher rate of recurrent throat infections in BD patients is in favour of the pathogenic role of infections, as trigger, in this disease.